Trends
CNN: McCain campaign gets new political director ...
07.07.08 -- 6:05 AM
CNN's Political Ticker is reporting that McCain has tapped Rudy Giuliani's former campaign manager Mike DuHaime to serve as his new political director ...
In one of his first moves to centralize control of McCain's political
organization, Steve Schmidt has tapped Rudy Giuliani's former campaign manager,
Mike DuHaime, to be McCain's new political director, a top campaign adviser
tells CNN.Until last week, McCain had no political director at headquarters –
highly unusual for a general election campaign. Mccain's campaign instead
relied on 11 regional campaign managers — a structure many Republicans in and
outside of the McCain campaign, including Schmidt, considered unworkable.After formally taking control of the political operation last week,
Schmidt decided to put a political director in place to oversee the state and
regional operations.Duhaime went to work as an adviser to McCain at headquarters not long
after Giuliani dropped his primary bid.
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CNN: Jeb Mush meeting up with John McCain...
07.03.08 -- 7:02 AM
Per CNN, Jeb Bush to meet McCain in Mexico ...
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the brother of President Bush, is meeting up with John McCain Thursday in Mexico City to visit the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe, his campaign has announced.
Bush, who was governor from 1999-2007, endorsed McCain's White House bid earlier this year after it was clear the Arizona senator would win the party's nomination. Bush did not endorse a candidate during the primary campaign.
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Clinton wants help with campaign debt ...
06.24.08 -- 6:13 AM
Per CNN Hillary Clinton is asking supporters to throw her a financial lifeline ...
Her presidential bid may have ended two weeks ago, but Hillary Clinton is still on the hunt for campaign cash.
The New York Democrat is well over $20 million in debt, nearly half of which Clinton loaned herself personally earlier in the year when her campaign was virtually broke and faced life-or-death primary contests.
When it comes to recovering her personal loan, it's a race against the clock.
Under campaign finance laws spearhead by current presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, Clinton must pay herself back before the party's convention in late August, or else she is only allowed to receive $250,000.
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Will McCain get Ron Paul's supporters? ...
06.22.08 -- 7:45 AM
Politico's Ben Adler asks if the GOP presidential presumptive nominee John McCain will get the votes of Ron Paul's supporters. Will he? With Paul favoring Obama's foreign policy views and suspecting that McCain will lock the US in a 100-year war in the Middle East, it doesn't seem very likely...
With iconoclast Ron Paul having ended his quixotic bid for the Republican presidential nomination — his platform had called for, among other things, ending the Iraq War, repealing the PATRIOT Act, returning to the gold standard and eliminating taxes on tips — his many dedicated supporters are up for grabs.
Even excluding his support in caucus states, Paul received a few more than a million votes in the Republican primary, finished second in five states including Pennsylvania and Oregon and continued to draw votes well after he’d effectively withdrawn from the race. His campaign also tapped into the potent new vein of online fundraising, punctuated by the so-called “money bomb” day when his supporters, unaided by his campaign, managed to pump $5 million into his coffers in 24 hours.
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McCain playing with fire ...
06.18.08 -- 6:14 AM
Is John McCain playing with fire with his support for off-shore drilling? Politico's Charles Mahtesian and David think so ....
By calling for an end to the federal ban on offshore oil drilling, John McCain is placing a risky bet. He is wagering that skyrocketing gas prices have finally reached a tipping point, a threshold moment that has led voters to rethink their strong and long-held opinions against coastal oil exploration.
The stakes couldn’t be higher: If he is wrong, McCain will have seriously damaged his chances in two key states with thousands of miles of coastline — California and Florida — and where opposition to offshore oil drilling has been unwavering. And he will have undermined some of his closest political allies in those states and others, including potential fall battlegrounds such as Virginia and North Carolina.
“Before $4.25-per-gallon gas, this would have been like pulling a pin on a grenade and rolling it into the state,” said David Johnson, the former executive director of the Florida Republican Party. “It would have been a fool’s errand to recommend it. It was never, ever a thing that a smart politician would have done in Florida.”
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Where's the bounce? ...
06.16.08 -- 6:15 AM
Where's the Obama bounce , asks Politico.com's Mike Allen. Good question.
“Voters are closely divided between Barack Obama and John McCain in Gallup Poll Daily tracking conducted June 12-14, with 44 percent of national registered voters favoring Obama for president and 42 percent backing McCain. Obama had led by as many as seven percentage points in the first few days following Hillary Clinton's departure from the race. … [A] relatively high percentage of voters – 15 percent -- [is] not favoring either major-party candidate. This includes 7 percent of voters who say they are undecided and 8 percent who say they will not vote for either candidate … As a result, the percentages of Americans now supporting Obama and McCain are near the lowest seen for either candidate since Gallup Poll Daily tracking on the Obama-McCain matchup started in early March.”
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Clinton financial backers coalescing around Obama ...
06.13.08 -- 6:34 AM
According to USA Today's Fredreka Schouten Clinton's financial backers seem to be rallying around Obama ...
Eleni Tsakopoulos-Kounalakis is one of Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton's most ardent supporters and raised more than $1 million for her campaign.
But on Tuesday, the Sacramento developer took a step she never imagined: She donated $4,600 to Barack Obama. "As hard as it is to let go of the dream, I believe that we need to beat John McCain," Tsakopoulos-Kounalakis said.
It's one sign of the growing cooperation between Clinton and Obama fundraisers now that Obama has clinched the Democratic Party nomination and is forging ahead with the general-election battle against Republican presumptive nominee John McCain.
Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe met Thursday in New York with some of Clinton's biggest fundraisers, including her national finance co-chairman Hassan Nemazee. Today, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a vocal Clinton backer who once questioned whether Obama could win his state in the fall, plans to appear at a fundraiser with the Illinois senator.
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City-size crowd turns out to hear Obama speak ...
05.18.08 -- 4:22 PM
And the crowd came in the tens of thousands to hear the messiah speak ...
Sen. Barack Obama has seen his share of large crowds over the last 15 months, but his campaign said they have not approached the numbers gathered along the waterfront here right now.
The campaign, citing figures from Duane Bray, battalion chief of Portland Fire & Rescue, estimated that 75,000 people are watching him speak.
The scene suggests this is not an exaggeration. The sea of heads stretches for half a mile along the grassy embankment, while others watch from kayaks and power boats bobbing on the Willamette River. More hug the rails of the steel bridge that stretches across the water and crowds are even watching from jetties on the opposite shore.
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Gallup Poll: Majority of Democrats want Obama to pick Clinton as running mate ...
05.13.08 -- 10:44 AM
Think Hillary Clinton is out of the running for the VP spot on rival Barack Obama's presidential ticket? Think again. CNN is reporting that a majority of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters want Obama to select Clinton as his running mate...
Even as the prolonged Democratic presidential race has become more divisive in its final stretch, a majority of Democrats want Barack Obama to choose Hillary Clinton as his running mate, according to a new poll out Tuesday.
A new Gallup poll shows 55 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents surveyed think Obama should offer the New York senator a spot on his ticket. That number is significantly influenced by Clinton's supporters — close the 75 percent of her backers want the No. 2 spot to be offered, while only 43 percent of Obama supporters feel the same.
The poll comes as some of Clinton's highest profile backers increasingly suggest Obama and Clinton should team up for the general election. Speaking in New York Friday, Sen. Chuck Schumer said he at first didn't think such a team was possible but now believes "it could be."
"Hillary and Barack have both run very strong and great races, and I think they'd be a strong ticket together," he said.
Rep. Charlie Rangel, who also backs Clinton, also put his support behind a joint ticket Monday. Speaking on CNN, the New York congressman said such a scenario would be "terrific," adding "I hope it works out that way."
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Ron Paul Predicts Obama Will Be Next President of the United States
05.03.08 -- 2:28 AM
Texas congressman and nominal GOP presidential candidate (yes, he's still in the game) has made a surprise prediction: Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States. Andrew Malcolm in a blog posting in the online version of the Los Angeles Times says Paul made the prediction at a school presidential forum at Maryland's Goucher College.
Rep. Ron Paul, the House member from Texas who technically remains in the race for the Republican Party's presidential nomination against Sen. John McCain, predicts that Democratic Sen. Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States.
According to the campus newspaper of Maryland's Goucher College, the 72-year-old Paul made the surprising statement during campaign remarks Thursday at a school presidential forum.
The newspaper report said the auditorium was overflowing with students and parents, who interrupted the congressman with applause nearly two dozen times during his speech.
Paul was very successful in political fundraising during the past year, amassing more than $34 million, more than twice the amount collected by more prominent candidates such as ex-Gov. Mike Huckabee.
But Paul, whose views often run counter to standard Republican policies, had very disapppointing showings in party primary elections, with a couple of second-place caucus results but mainly third-, fourth- and fifth-place finishes in primaries. At one point in New Hampshire,...
...Fox News even excluded him from a nationally-televised GOP debate as politically irrelevant.
Given that Paul says he approves some elements of Obama's foreign policy positions could his prediction be an indirect way of hinting to his supporters that he endorses Obama's presidential bid?
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